I was at a bar the other night and meeting the BF’s new work buddies. I said I was working as an English teacher right now and this one guy was like – Oh cool, you must be into writing. And I was like – yeah, I’ve written a novel, like whatever, it’s not published, it’s just written. It’s not even professionally edited and no one has even read the whole thing. It might as well not even exist really…

But I wrote a novel. I spent like all these years writing a novel. Why? Because I always wanted to write a novel. The journey of it was the thing right? Like what do you do in your spare time? I’m working on this cool YA romance time travel novel actually. Yes. I felt totally awesome when I was writing it. Like I was going somewhere and doing something.

But now it’s finished. OK, like all writers out there I could keep working on it for the next thirty years, but let’s just say it’s as finished as it is going to get with only my own eyes upon it.

So what do I do now? Well, I started working on the sequel but it was kind of like, no one has even read the first book, why am I slaving away on the sequel? And yes, writing the sequel is seriously fun and I love doing it, but I’m also very time limited right now in my life and I have to weigh up how much spending so many hours of my day working out time travel twists against building a decent future for myself. Ideally, I’d like it to be the same thing, but when no one pays attention to your novel, it starts to feel like a waste of time. OK, I don’t really think that or mean it, time spent writing is not a waste of time. But some days it feels like that. If it doesn’t feel like that for you and you happily sit and write at your laptop at 5am every morning even though no one is interested in publishing you, well done. You beat me.

Argh, but I’m so sick of all those stupid fucking quotes about how if you’re a writer you will write every day. I haven’t written for months. That’s the reality of being a writer. You write a novel, you spend a couple months sending it out to agents and publishers and every one of them replies with ‘while we enjoyed reading your submission, unfortunately…’ Bullshit you enjoyed it! Just say you didn’t even read it! Or admit you thought it was crap!

…But not necessarily a published one!

Seriously, I don’t want my novel to be on my laptop when I die. I want it to have a life. It’s weird how it actually feels like it is it’s own entity. Like it’s own person. Like it’s not mine any more. The cord is cut and now this novel needs to go out into the world and live. It needs to meet people, make friends, have lovers, make people laugh, cry, piss people off, bore the pants off people and be loved and loathed.

I’m just so shit scared of it not getting published. I’m scared of it getting published by the wrong publisher. I’m scared that the people I wrote it for, all the 80’s dorks and YA lovers, time travel nerds and kids with crushes won’t ever get to read it.

So far I’ve been rejected like I dunno, at least 15 times, that’s not including people who never got back to me. It’s not that many, I know that. But man it gets boring doing this. Refining your stupid cover letters, cutting and pasting the first three, oh no, you only want two? oh you want that as an attached file or pasted into the email? oh shit I forgot to change the agents name.

What are the other options? 1. self publish, 2. upload the whole thing to the internet for free or 3. die with your novel still on your laptop.

I just finished my Almighty Johnsons marathon and I just had to tell everyone to watch it! The best show I’ve watched in ages. So refreshing to watch something that is first of all – not American, no offence America but you kind of own TV. And the subject matter – a bunch of random guys who just happen to be Norse Gods?! Awesome. So much awesome! It’s on Netflix and wherever else you get your TV from.

I remember loving this movie when I was a kid and so when I found myself with a head cold this week and Clockwork Prince finally finished I headed over to Netflix and typed into the search box – 1980s and when Teen Witch came up I was like yay!!! It’s about a gazillion times better than The Craft or Sabrina the Teenage Witch, or even Bewitched!

Teen Witch blends everything that is cool about magic and the 80’s into 90 minutes, like hello, if you could do magic you wouldn’t really be off fighting the Dark Lord or whatever, you’d totally be using your powers to become the most popular girl in school, don’t even try to deny it! Harry Potter’s got nothing on you Lousie Miller!!

There are so many reasons to check this movie out, but here’s the top ten reasons why you need to see this movie!

1. Retro psychics who pretend to be frauds but are actually totally legit but not all that ethical.

2. Riding bikes in tutus.

3. Bitchy cheerleaders who do choreographed dance sequences in the locker rooms dressed in leotards.

4. Dudes that rap and dance like this.:

5. Putting magic spells on your mates so they can rap and be cool for once in their lives.

6. The kid brother. This guy was amazing. You have to watch the trailer below to see this kid in action. He’s like a bitter old man in a kid costume.

7. Stone wash jeans.

8. Boys who look like Ken dolls and wear muscle tops.

9. This hairstyle which attracts boys who look like Ken dolls even without magic!

10. They just don’t do proms like they used to. Remember when everyone used to dance like this?!

Check out the trailer for all the good bits, or just go watch the movie, you seriously won’t regret it!

I love searching through Pinterest and Google for inspirational images to get me in the writing zone. I often spend hours (when I should probably be doing something else) Googling 1980’s fashion, adverts and recipes. It’s like chilling out, taking a break, getting inspired and working on your project all at the same time!

Anyway, today I came across an image so freaking cool and SO my novel that I was like – OMG this is perfect! I need it for the cover or something. Ashton Kutcher of all people (seriously not that sure why I’m following Ashton Kutcher, I mean his movies are OK I guess, but I’m not like in the fandom or anything) posted this article yesterday about this awesome artist called David Jablow. What he does, amongst other things, is he finds these cool retro kitsch doodle pads…

And just when you think you’re going to see some badly drawn boobs, he does something like this:

For those of you who don’t know what the hell this Time Traveller’s Scrunchie thing is, basically I’m writing… no wait, it’s finished! I wrote a YA novel about time travel and the 1980’s and there is actually a calculator watch in it, and later in the triology some of these other things, like the chic from the 70’s make an appearance!

I just freaking love it, and you should totally go check out his website to see all the other amazing things he’s done!

Once in a while comes a story so amazing that all I am able to do is just sit in awe of it. When I read, no devoured, The Fault in Our Stars by John Green I couldn’t even think about my own novel, because The Fault in Our Stars is pure genius literature, and my novel is a chip packet in comparison. John Green is seriously a legend and kids and big kids a hundred years from now are still going to be devouring this stuff.

The film actually worked too. I mean how many times do you go to the cinema to see your latest favourite YA turned into a movie only to walk out chatting non stop about the changes they made, how the book was better and that the casting was insane? I walked out of the cinema after watching this movie just feeling emotions and that is the whole point right?!

I long for the day to see my YA time travel 1980’s romance novel on the big screen, which judging from this week’s rejections by literary agents in my inbox isn’t happening any time soon, but it doesn’t make me any less special because the world doesn’t know about me.

Nothing makes me happier than discovering an awesome 80’s movie I haven’t seen yet. And because one of my male lead characters in my time travel YA 1980’s romance novel kind of looks like John Cusack I’ve made a list of 80’s John Cusack films and I’m so slowly working through them.

Better off Dead was such a super nice surprise. It was pretty awesome. From the first few minutes I was giggling like a 1980’s school girl and basically, I loved it and I think you will too!

Here’s 10 reasons you aren’t Better Off Dead – because if you were dead you wouldn’t get to watch this movie… unless you were a ghost and it turns out that ghosts can come over and watch movies with you, but let’s leave that idea for the next YA trilogy.

Reason 1 – Love sick John Cusack.

Reason 2: Aviators, because the 80’s was so not just about Ray Ban Wayfarers you guys.

Reason 3 – pouty teenage John Cusack. I mean come on girls… and boys who like boys…

Reason 4 – 1980’s beauty tips… or should I say cue tips? LOL!

Reason 5 – it’s like the only movie ever made where the only way to win a girl’s heart is to ski real good.

Reason 6 – Burgers in love. ❤

Reason 7 – French exchange students who don’t quite have it fluent.

Reason 8 – Rubber glove drag races.

Reason 9 – John Cusack wearing a pig nose.

Reason 10 – The guy who actually owns the Camero John Cusack drove in the movie! (I so need a Camero!)

Stay tuned to timetravellersscrunchie.com for more reasons to watch every John Cusack 1980’s movie ever made!

So for those of you playing at home, you’ll know that this blog goes with my YA time travel 1980’s novel that I’m trying to get finished. But I’ve spent way too much time playing on my blog and not enough time playing on my novel. I’m also really busy. OK, everyone says they are busy, but I really am busy! I was about to go on a total rant about how busy I am, but I’ll spare you. I’ll just say I have a pretty full life and writing my novel, as much as I love it, is not the only thing I live for.

I’ve been really trying to kick my own butt though, because I’m so close to it being ‘finished’ (i.e. in a state that one could read it and maybe point out some plot holes, inconsistencies and boring bits)! So I’ve developed an awesome new (OK, probably loads of people do this) time management trick.

I call it; The amazing time management trick for YA time travel novelists who don’t have enough time!

It basically creates time. Hello.

So you start on day 1 and you use your phone or whatever you time stuff on and you type in 30 mins (or whatever amount of time you think is the MOST time you could possibly spend writing that day). Then the next day guess what? You type in 31 mins. And then 32 mins on the next day, do you get it? It’s not rocket science.

And the best bit is that because you only add one minute on a day, it’s like you don’t even notice it! It’s like magical made-up time!

You’ll be writing all day in no time and still be able to go to work! :-O